What is the difference between hardwood and softwood?

This is a delicate subject, I do not wish to offend any of my 3 readers, but hardwood and softwood is related to sex.  Tree sex to be exact, hence the wood part of the question. 

Trees have flowers, on fruit trees these are easy to see.  On other trees they look less flowerish, like pine trees.  But trust me, they are there.  These flowers are composed of a pistil and a stamen.  The stamen is the boy part and makes pollen.  The pistil is the girl part and makes babies, I mean seeds.  In many instances bees are required to interact with the pistil and stamen forming a potent pollinating threesome. 

After this fraternizing some trees will surround the babies, seeds, with fruit, or an acorn, or something.  These are called angiosperms.  Others let the seeds fall to the ground with no covering; these are deadbeat dad trees, or gymnosperms.  An easy way to tell them apart is that evergreens are soft woods (deadbeats), and deciduous trees are hard woods.

So there you have it.  Straight grained fir has a hardness of about 700 on the Janka hardness scale (bigger numbers are harder) and can be used for hardwood floors, but it is really a softwood.  Balsa on the other hand, with a hardness of about 100, and used for making model airplanes because it is so soft and pliable, is a hardwood. 

So, why are the deadbeats soft woods, and trees with nuts hard woods?  I don't know, go ask your dad.